The recent success of machine learning (ML) has been fueled by the increasing
availability of computing power and large amounts of data in many different
applications. However, the trustworthiness of the resulting models can be
compromised when such data is maliciously manipulated to mislead the learning
process. In this article, we first review poisoning attacks that compromise the
training data used to learn ML models, including attacks that aim to reduce the
overall performance, manipulate the predictions on specific test samples, and
even implant backdoors in the model. We then discuss how to mitigate these
attacks using basic security principles, or by deploying ML-oriented defensive
mechanisms. We conclude our article by formulating some relevant open
challenges which are hindering the development of testing methods and
benchmarks suitable for assessing and improving the trustworthiness of ML
models against data poisoning attacks